


Starlight and Coffee Shops

by wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-12 04:12:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2095308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas/pseuds/wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eternity is an incredibly long time. Planets come and go, species flourish and die out. The last thing Levi expected was to fall in love with a mortal human, even one who made incredibly good coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking a lot about stars lately and this came to me so...enjoy :)

A child of stars and things long since forgotten uncurled himself from the nest of leaves and rags he built for himself beneath the overly large oak tree. He slept through several seasons, feeling the rise and fall of this planet’s temperature on his skin, ignoring the noisy animals that scampered and hurried by in the endless cyclical search for food and mates and shelter. It was summer now and all around him he could feel the vibrant life of the forest. The trees sunk their roots deep into the soil and pulled water up to their deep green leaves, shiny from recent rain. Every creature was breathing in the warm, thick air with a vitality that made the ancient child scowl and cross his arms over his chest. He loved this forest, don’t misunderstand me, but there was always the possibility that someone could see him smile at his beloved wood and that would be unacceptable. Not to mention it would be annoying as hell. Not as annoying as that one time a few eons ago when he almost got caught between two galaxies that were consuming each other, but close.

He stretched his limbs, which were short for someone who housed so much knowledge and strength, and yawned widely. Perhaps he had slept too long. The leaves and rags on which he had slept now turned to dust and were swept away in a passing wind at a flick of his will. They would return to the earth to be renewed, joining the eternal circle of decomposition and rebirth. Levi was getting really tired of circles. They were so predictable. They didn’t have an end or a beginning and they were just so _boring_. Then again, being surrounded by circles for billions of years could make one rather sick of them. He sighed and started walking. There was a town nearby and he was curious to see what had changed in the world of humans while he had been resting. He didn’t have to sleep often, only every few hundred years or so, but when he did he always slept longer than he meant to. And judging by the extreme change in architecture, which he could see even from a couple miles away, he had been asleep for several years, maybe even a few decades.

Humans are not the brightest creatures in the universe. Though they have been learning – slowly ─ as far as Levi could tell. They had stopped bashing each other over the head with clubs at least. Mostly. Even so, Levi wasn’t sure why he had chosen this particular planet to spend most of his time. He supposed it was because it was so full of life. There were other planets that housed life, but none like this. Several planets just had small micro bacterium and other tiny life forms. A select few had vast ecosystems with a full range of vegetation, mammals, insects, amphibians, and so on, but the ones Levi favoured had died out over a million years ago. One planet seemed promising, though it was only in the beginning stages. Levi hoped that when this planet got swallowed by its sun he could move on to that one. If not, he could just roam again until he found something interesting to hold his attention for half an eon.

Levi reached the outskirts of the town, which had now become more of a city, and stared up at the tall glass and metal buildings that filled it. When he had gone to sleep, all the houses had been made of wood, brick, and whatever other materials were readily available. They were small things, two stories at most, and usually housed far too many people for their small size. The stench of so many humans living together, tossing their shit into the streets, their unwashed bodies sweating under summer sun, had made Levi feel ill and he could never handle more than short, infrequent trips to the town. But as much as humans bored (and repulsed) him, sometimes even he got lonely and humans could at least make semi-intelligent conversation.

He slowly strolled through the city. Humans bustled past, barely giving him a second glance. A few looked him up and down, but they quickly moved on and Levi thought nothing of it. He was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was. There was no shit in the streets – human or horse – and everything seemed fairly well organised. Strange stone paths lined both sides of a larger black stone path. He had never seen such stone before and he wondered if perhaps humans had _made_ it, though that made little sense. He had never heard of humans being capable of making stone. Some paper and other trash were littered in places along the path, but it was minimal and Levi was impressed by how much humans had improved in such a short time. A bizarre creature passed by on the black stone with a roar and he resisted the urge to jump back. He watched it pass in wonder. Had a new species been born while he was asleep? He was upset that he had missed it. He loved watching new things come into being; it was one of the few joys in had in life.

He kept walking and, as he did, he peeked into the windows of a few of the buildings. Some buildings held groups of tables where humans sat in groups, eating and talking. Others had desks where the humans sat and pushed buttons on odd contraptions with glowing screens. He would have to figure out what those were. He saw humans running on spinning black ground attached to handles in the window of another building. He paused to stare at the stupid humans for a moment, wondering why in the infinite universe these creatures would want to run to nowhere while not being chased. Clearly these humans had developed a defect. He shook his head and kept walking. Suddenly a door opened to his right and a man walked out, holding a paper cup which was full of steaming liquid. The aroma of the drink was so strong and wonderful that Levi almost ripped it right out of the man’s hand to have for himself. Instead he settled for entering the shop and purchasing his own taste of this new human invention. He hoped the coins he had still had value. If not, he could always conjure new currency, though he would have to try to not be conspicuous. Humans could be incredibly skittish creatures and if they knew what he was, or guessed that he wasn’t one of them, they had a tendency toward fear-crazed behaviour.

At first Levi watched the humans as they filed up to a counter where a young man took their order, made their drink, and then asked for payment. It was a simple transaction. The only problem was that Levi did not have any form of payment that the customers were using. Some handed over brightly coloured paper or differently sized coins. Others passed the young man a rectangle made out of hard material, not stone or wood or anything Levi knew of, and he would slide it through the machine in front of him and hand it back. He decided that he understood the paper currency more easily and that it would be far easier to pay with that than the mystery rectangle of money. Levi watched more closely the next time a customer paid with the coloured paper and he subtly made copies of it in the pocket of his trousers.

Levi stepped away from his corner and stood in the back of the queue, patiently waiting his turn. It was only when he reached the front that he realised he had no idea what the drink was called that he came in here to order. He stared at the board behind the counter which held all the elusive names of items he could possibly buy and floundered for a choice.

“Hello,” the young human said brightly. “How may I help you?”

“Hello,” Levi responded, glad that the greeting was still familiar, informal though it was. “I do not know what I want,” he admitted.

“Okay,” said the maker-of-drinks slowly. “Let’s try and figure it out then!” He beamed at Levi and Levi was surprised to find himself smiling back, if only slightly. The human’s irises were swirls of greens and blues, like the ocean or the infrared light from the outer layer of stars burning close in a constellation. They were mesmerising and for a moment all Levi could do was stare. He remembered belatedly that humans did not, as a rule, take kindly to staring. He cleared his throat and looked back at the list of drinks and foods.

“There was a man outside. He was holding a drink that smelled wonderfully. I want that.”

The blue-green eyed man laughed and Levi was almost offended until he saw that it was not meant as an insult. “A lot of our drinks smell really good. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“This whole shop smells like it. Strong and bitter, but intoxicating. Like a potion, but more earthy and natural.” He had never been very good at communicating with humans. Words always confused meaning and he could never quite say what he meant to say. The human in front of him seemed amused by his attempt, however, and he laughed again.

“Coffee. It’s called coffee.” Levi cocked his head to the side and memorized the word. Coffee. Such a wonderful smelling brew. Surely it would taste as good as it smelled?

“Yes. I’ll have one cup of coffee.”

“Coming right up!” Levi watched in fascination as brown-skinned hands flew through well-practised motions. His order was simpler than many others he could tell, since the man had only to pour the dark brown liquid from a glass pot into a cup, but there was something about the way the man moved that held Levi entranced. He wasn’t particularly graceful, merely efficient and knowledgeable. He knew what he was doing and he did it quickly, spinning around the small space to grab a cup from the stack, his long fingers gripping the handle of the coffee pot tightly and not spilling a single drop as he neatly poured a generous amount into the cylindrical container.

“Would you like milk or sugar or anything in it?”

“What would you recommend?” Levi asked. He had no idea what coffee tasted like, but he trusted that the man who spent his days making the drink would know if he should add milk or sugar.

“It’s all about personal preference. Why don’t you try a sip and see if you want it to be sweeter or less strong. Then we’ll go from there.” He was still smiling, his flat white teeth bared in a way that only humans could make friendly.

Levi took the cup from him and cautiously sipped it. The coffee was scalding hot and he was sure that if he had been a human he would have burnt his mouth. As it was, the heat felt pleasant sliding down his throat. Levi burned with a cold fire in his limbs, spreading from his chest to keep him alive with icy warmth. This coffee was more like lava, thick and hot. It was every bit as bitter and strong as it smelled and Levi instantly fell in love with the drink.

“It’s perfect,” he informed his helpful drink-maker. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it. Since it’s obviously you’re first, this one’s on the house.”

On the house? Levi struggled to remember the phrase. Ah, yes. It meant that the drink was free. Money meant nothing to Levi, but he recognised the kindness of this man to offer him a free coffee. He did his best to smile in the manner of humans expressing gratitude and turned to leave.

“Just one thing!” The man’s voice made him pause and turn around. “Tell me your name.”

Levi was surprised. The man had said the coffee was free, but then he asked for Levi’s name. He did not often tell humans his name, since names are incredibly powerful things, but he sometimes made an exception. The earnest, eager look on the human’s face was enough to make Levi open his mouth and say simply, “I am Levi.”

The man’s smile grew impossibly wider and he returned, “My name’s Eren. If you’re ever in the neighbourhood again, stop by and ask for me. I’m always here.” Levi nodded returned the smile, more genuinely this time. He then turned and walked back into the open street with his coffee, the corners of his mouth still lifted like an after-glow of a smile.


	2. Dinner With a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi meets an eccentric human named Hanji who shows him the secrets of this new and strange city in which he now finds himself.

Levi had seen a lot of cities in his time. He had met many intelligent life forms – some more intelligent than others – and he had seen every variation of architecture, design, culture, and life style imaginable. Towering stone spires that swirled to blood red skies, short flat metal buildings made to blend in with the ground to avoid air borne predators, underground cities with square tunnels and glowing lichen for lights. He had seen broken cities filled with filth and depravity; cities ruled with an iron and fire; lively cities alight with peace and brilliance. This one was new to him though.

The buildings that surrounded him seemed like a mosaic of different eras and ideas. Some were made of square, tan stone with ornate and detailed architecture. Others were tall and made of silver metal and glass, stretching up in curves or straight edges to fill the skyline with their massive presence. Still others were red brick with ivy climbing their way along the cracks to curl green leaved fingers over the black roofs. It looked like the city had been built in waves, either of money or imagination, and thus reflected multiple minds working on different pieces of the same puzzle. It was fascinating. Levi strolled down street after street, his coffee cup long since emptied and tossed into a waste receptacle conveniently placed at a crossing, taking it all in.

He paused in the middle of one fairly empty path and closed his eyes, letting his other senses take over. First his mind acknowledged the vast universe as a whole, feeling the spin and burn of millions of billions of stars and planets, the great clockwork gears turning against each other in a symphony that was both subtle and great. He then narrowed his focus, drawing his attention to this galaxy, spinning milky white in the great blackness, then to the tiny, impossibly small blue dot of a planet at its edge. He felt the rotation of the earth and reacquainted himself with its burning core, its thin, shifting skin, its abundant life. He could tell that so much had changed since he last took notice of his surroundings. So much of the forests and wildlife was gone, pushed aside by the humans, to be replaced by overflowing cities and straight-edged human habitats. So little of the untamed, fantastic earth he had fallen in love with now remained. His heart grieved and for a moment he couldn’t move, so furious with the infestation that was the human race that he couldn’t breathe. He considered leaving, flying across the universe to that primitive planet still pushing forth single celled organisms to watch its development and nurse his wounded soul. He considered destroying the humans, ripping them apart with his rage and watching them swirl atom by atom into the ever recycling universe to possibly give new life rather than take it. But he did neither, standing still and breathing deeply until he was calm enough to continue his exploration of the planet’s changes.

He explored the earth’s surface with his consciousness, noting the growth and invention of the human race. They truly had come a long way. After a while he was able to remember what he had always known: change is inevitable. Stronger, smarter species dominate any ecosystem. They drive out the weak and inadaptable. What had happened on this planet was normal, expected even. It was only his foolish attachment to the beauty of the life that had been on this planet that caused him pain. Once he realised this, it was easier to move on to the study of human development.

It seemed that they had grown exponentially, both in number and in intelligence. They were still largely violent creatures and even now he could feel their blood soak soil all over the planet, but on the whole they were much more civilised. He gathered that it had been centuries, rather than decades that he’d been asleep. At least four Earth centuries, to be more precise. Levi shook his head in disbelief. He had never slept that long. At least his natural self-preservation instincts had kept him from being discovered by the humans in all that time. He was sure it was his influence that protected the forest he’d slept in as well. Being so close to the city, he was certain that they wished to raze the entire wood to make room for more metal and stone. They probably would still do that actually, if Levi didn’t continue protecting it. As soon as he had the thought, he cast his influence over the forest again like a blanket, or an iron wall. It wouldn’t completely prevent humans from destroying it, but it would deter them and would at least save it for a while.

“Hey, are you okay, man?” Levi opened his eyes at the sound of the voice so close to his face. It was jarring to have his attention snapped to such a specific place and time so quickly. He blinked at the concerned, bespectacled face in front of him.

“Yes, I am...okay.” He curtly took a step back and wondered if the concept of personal space had changed in the centuries he’d been asleep.

“Oh. I thought you might have been in a trance or something, the way you were just standing there with your eyes closed. I’m Hanji, by the way,” the human held out its hand and, after a brief moment of hesitation, Levi grasped the forearm in the manner of a human greeting he had seen countless times.

“Well met, Hanji.” The human gave him an odd look and he wondered if he had said the greeting wrong. Perhaps it was outdated; humans did tend to change popular culture so quickly.

“Nice to meet you, too. You’re weird. I like that.” Hanji was beaming at him, leaning too close for his comfort. He withdrew his hand and took another step back.

“Weird? I don’t understand.” He had wanted to extract himself from the situation as quickly as possible, but he needed to know how to behave more “normally” so as to avoid awkwardness while interacting with other humans. It was going to be more unavoidable than ever to speak with them now that they were so ubiquitous, unless he wanted to leave the planet entirely.

“I didn’t mean to offend you!” Hanji said quickly. “You’re not from around here, are you? Your accent sounds foreign. I’m from Scotland myself, so I know what it’s like moving somewhere new. I can show you around if you like!” The human spoke quickly and excitedly, edging closer to him all the while, and Levi couldn’t help but be a little alarmed. There was something sincere and oddly endearing about the creature though, and Levi thought it might the beneficial to see the city from the eyes of one of its inhabitants.

“All right. You may ‘show me around’, but only if you maintain proper distance,” he said, stepping back once more to emphasize his point.

“Woo-hoo!” Hanji cheered, jumping up into the air, fist raised in an expression of joy. “We’re going to have so much fun!” Levi had no idea why the human felt so triumphant in his response, but he supposed it was another human quirk he would have to learn. He had seen humans become excited when their child took their first shit, so he supposed this was nothing new in the grand scheme of things.

Hanji grabbed his hand and dragged him along behind her as she passionately pointed out different buildings and statues, blabbering about their importance and history. She showed him various coffee shops, restaurants, businesses, living spaces, and an abundance of other places. He learned that the buildings with the people running to nowhere were called fitness centres or gyms. Humans went there to maintain their optimal muscle to fat ratio, or as Hanji said ‘to keep in shape’. It was still odd, but at least Levi now understood their purpose.

“You’re lucky I have the day off today. I’m a scientist at the institute a few blocks over – I’ll point it out to you when we pass. Oh! That’s the ice cream shop I love right there. Best chocolate cones you’ll ever taste. Anyway what was I saying? Oh, yeah! I’m a research scientist. I’m trying to understand...well, everything! Mostly biology though. Humans are so fascinating. Especially their brains. There’s so much we don’t know about how we work and I want to discover how humans are able to do all the things we do, to think the way we do. You know?”

“I agree. The human mind is actually quite fascinating. You have such a complex network of neurons, so much information being processed, and yet so little of it is actually remembered or used. You have grown more intelligent over the centuries, but you still understand so little and have far to go.” He had met many scientists over the years, some human, most otherwise, trying to understand everything from the way the universe first began to the function of the smallest subatomic particle. Different scientists got different pieces of the truth right, but none had come close to the whole truth. It was beyond the realm of mortal minds, though he appreciated the efforts made toward knowledge. It was admirable that so many would endeavour to pursue enlightenment and he enjoyed watching the young creatures make stumbling steps toward awareness.

“You understand!” exclaimed his companion loudly, attracting the attention of several passersby. “Oh, I’m so happy someone else gets it. I could talk forever about how the science we know doesn’t quite match the actual experience of the brain’s function and how daunting the list of things we don’t know is. We should go to dinner and talk about it!” Hanji’s eyes were fiercely animated and she grabbed Levi’s hand again to drag him into a nearby restaurant before he had a chance to protest.

Levi could easily have resisted her strength, but he was curious about modern human food. He didn’t need to eat, not as humans did anyway, but he could enjoy a good meal if he so desired. Inside the restaurant was dim after the brightness outside, lit by electrical lights that hummed faintly overhead. That was new; the last time he’d interacted with humans they only had candles and, if they were rich enough, oil lamps. The place was relatively clean with polished dark wood tables, chairs with burgundy cushions, and black carpeted floors. It smelled like wine and spices and most of the customers were eating pastas with rich sauces and bread dipped in spiced olive oil.

“I hope you like Italian,” Hanji said as she walked up to the podium where a long haired human stood, pen in hand. She looked female, though Levi was adequate at best at determining human genders. They were all so particular about it, which irked him sometimes. He had a form most often considered male by other species, but he didn’t care what pronouns they used for him. Some humans were obvious by their anatomy, their facial features, and their acceptance of cultural, gendered norms – as with the male who served him coffee this morning – but others, like Hanji, were more difficult. He had to admit that he favoured the species that preferred neutrality or didn’t care either way about gender. He felt the most relaxed around them, unafraid of using improper pronouns, and most himself.

“Table for two please,” Hanji informed the woman at the podium. They were led immediately to a table in the front corner, one of the last few available, and the hostess handed them two menus. Levi opened his and began to peruse the options. Many of the items were written in Italian, which was unusual. The last time he checked he had been on a smallish island north of the country called Italy. They spoke mostly English here, which was an offshoot of German, as well as a dialect of French. He had never met any Italian speaking humans on this island, though he supposed there had been integration of peoples in the centuries past. He wondered if he ought to order in Italian.

“Mmm, I’m so hungry I could eat everything. Do you know what you want?”

Levi lowered his menu to look at his tour guide and now eating companion. “No, not yet. Do you?”

“I think I’ll have the pumpkin ravioli and a glass of red wine. Or would white wine be better? Hmm, decisions, decisions. Or maybe I shouldn’t have wine. You know what? I’ll just have soda.”

Levi was slowly getting used to the amount that Hanji talked. If he gave her the silence to fill, she would speak until the earth finished its rotation around the sun. Their waiter, who had previously come over with two glasses filled with water and cubes of ice, came back to take their order. He was an obviously male human with a square jaw and broad shoulders. He was attractive, as far as humans went. His face was fairly symmetrical and his eyes were a soft brown, full of life. They weren’t the colour of oceans or swirling nebulas, but they were attractive nonetheless. Levi had taken his fair share of human lovers in the past, and for a fleeting moment he considered the possibility of enjoying a night with this one. The moment passed and he brought his mind back to the present, where Hanji was ordering her ravioli and soda.

Since Hanji had ordered in English, he figured it was customary to have items in the language of origin but order in the language of the country in which they were served. It made sense. Since it was a traditional style Italian restaurant, they ordered a full meal complete with antipasta, insalata, primi, secondi, and dessert. It reminded Levi of the time when he visited Milan back when it was the capital of the Western Roman Empire. He had taken on one of Diocletian’s servants as a lover at the time that snuck him on the guest list to Diocletian’s daughter’s wedding reception. The table had been laden with food; a whole boar roasted and displayed in the centre, surrounded by roast duck, vegetable plates, fruit, pastas, lamb, chicken, goat – everything. Wine had flowed freely and the table had been loud and boisterous. Today’s meal was a much more subdued affair without the drunken men singing Italian and Latin and falling over themselves, though Hanji more than made up for it with her passionate chatter and the food was just as good.

“...so then I thought, ‘what if I try scanning people’s brains when they’re _not_ doing anything’ and guess what! There’s an entire secondary network that begins working when we’re doing nothing! It’s like the brain has a secret life that we know nothing about! So I did some more tests and I realised that this secondary system is super important in storing memories and creating a personal narrative. And would you believe this network causes the brain to consume more oxygen, gram for gram, than our heart!? It’s incredible. So of course I had to do more research to see if I was right...”she kept on and Levi listened intently, though he did his best to keep his deep interest off his face. Not that it mattered to Hanji; she was in her own world now, her hands flailing about in an attempt to convey her meaning with vague gestures. She no longer took notice of Levi except when he nodded or made a small noise of encouragement. It was nice to not be forced to talk and he liked listening to her excited rambling. She actually understood the human brain a lot better than he expected. The secondary network was something he had long known existed, but he had never heard of a human discovering it. 1  

They were just finishing their dessert ─ buttermilk scones with roasted peaches, blueberries and white chocolate cream – when music started playing from Hanji’s pocket. Levi stared as Hanji pulled a square piece of technology that Levi had never seen before and put it up to her ear after pressing a button on the glowing screen. He recognised it as a communication device, similar to one he had seen among a race of bipedal amphibians halfway across the galaxy. Of course, their technology had been powered by the energy harvested from solar flares, which these devices clearly were not.

“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” Hanji told him apologetically. “It’s my assistant from the lab. He probably has the results from the samples I gave him yesterday.” Levi didn’t mind so he just waved his hand in a gesture to say ‘go ahead’ and returned his attentions to his delicious dessert. The scone and fruit were warm, blending nicely with the cream to create a sweet, utterly ambrosial taste. The comfortable atmosphere, the wonderful food, and the interesting company left Levi in a particularly good mood and he was glad that events had happened in such a way as to allow him to meet Hanji and come to this particular restaurant the day he woke up after centuries of sleep. Luck was an invention of the ignorant, but at the moment he was inclined to feel spectacularly lucky.

 “Hey, Moblit! Did you finish running those samples I gave you yesterday? Great! I’ll come in later to check them out.” There was a pause and Hanji pouted her lips, though Levi assumed the communication was only audible and not visual. “Stop worrying about me, I’m just excited! All right, all right, I’ll wait until tomorrow, sheesh. I’m actually at dinner right now. Yeah, Il Capriccio’s, how’d you know? No, I’m with a stranger I met on the street.” Levi was listening harder now, almost against his will, and he heard a deep voice laugh on the other end of the line. “Why would I be kidding about that? He’s really nice. Say hi, Levi!”

Hanji all but shoved the device in his face and Levi was forced to say “hello” into the flat black screen. The deep voice returned the salutation and the device was snatched away before either of them could communicate further.

“He’s interested in the human brain. Yeah, we’ve been talking for hours! No, he doesn’t mind. You don’t mind, do you, Levi?”

Levi startled at being addressed so abruptly, but he recovered quickly. “I have enjoyed my time with you,” he answered honestly. “You’re not as annoying as most of the others.” Humans could be so terribly boring and vapid, but some were worth spending time with. Hanji was one of those few.

“See!” Hanji said triumphantly to Moblit. “He _enjoys_ my company.”

“ _Well then he must be a masochist,”_ returned Moblit. “ _Or crazy.”_ Hanji pouted at this, but barely a moment later was laughing with Moblit and moving past the light hearted insult. Hanji finished the conversation and said goodbye before hanging up and looking across the table at Levi.

 “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed this. I have a tendency to scare people away, especially when I basically drag them all over town and force them to have dinner with me!” Hanji laughed and Levi gathered that it was a joke, though he had to wonder if this was a regular occurrence for the eccentric human. “We should do this again sometime! Maybe I’ll take you to see my lab and you can take a look at some of my research. Not all of it obviously! But you might be interested in some other findings I’ve had over the years.”

“Sounds like a plan, glasses.” He smiled a little, barely lifting the corners of his mouth, but it was a genuine smile and he was actually looking forward to seeing the research.

“You already have a nickname for me!” Hanji smiled broadly. “I should think of one for you!”

“No,” Levi said firmly. The nickname had come easily; it was what he had been calling the human in his head, since the strange goggle-like glasses were hard to miss and easily captured one’s attention. He hadn’t meant for the slip to happen, let alone give the human permission to give him a nickname of his own.

“Oh, come on! I’ll think of a good one. Are you sensitive about your height? Because I can think a few good ones, but they might be a little insensitive...”

“Just call me Levi, shitty glasses,” Levi snapped. He wasn’t ashamed of his height, but he was well aware that his short stature put him at a relative disadvantage among the titan-sized human beings. They had only seemed to grow taller over the centuries.

“Okay, okay,” Hanji said, putting her hands up in mock surrender. “No short jokes. Got it.” She winked. Just as she finished talking their waiter came over with the bill and Hanji pulled out a black leather wallet, sliding one of those hard rectangles out of one of the pockets and handing it to the man. Levi decided to risk sounding ignorant for the sake of curiosity.

“What are those?”

“What are what?” Levi sighed and gestured vaguely in the direction of their waiter, who already had his back to them and was walking away. “Our waiter?” Hanji asked, confused.

“No!” Levi exclaimed in frustration. “Those...rectangles. I’ve never seen them before but you use them to pay for things. Like coffee. And dinner just now.”

“You mean credit cards?” Hanji asked incredulously. “Where are you from that they don’t have _credit cards_? I thought they were pretty much universal.”

They were definitely not universal. Though Levi did have an idea of what they were now, from the name. He had seen a couple of civilizations where people had credit built up in different establishments which allowed them to buy things without actually having currency. They could go to a place of business, purchase goods, and then pay back the debt when they had the money. Credit cards must be the human version of this.

Levi nodded thoughtfully to himself, rolling the term around in his mind. “How do they work here? Can you have credit anywhere, at any place of business?”

“The credit isn’t with the businesses, it’s with the bank. You have an account with the bank and they give you credit to buy things. Then when you get paid, you put the money in your account and it goes to pay for all the things you buy. It’s usually a good idea to only buy things you can afford with the money you currently have in your account, but some people are stupid and buy way more than they can afford, which is why there are so many people in debt. I still can’t believe you’ve never even _heard_ of them.”

Levi tilted his head in confusion. He had never liked the idea of banks – it always seemed a little strange to give all your money to a company and let them decide when and how you can have access to it – and having credit with them posed more than a few dangerous possibilities. Though he supposed the system did have its advantages.

“Are they necessary, these credit cards? Many people I have seen have paid with paper and have had no problem.”

“Oh, yeah. Cash is fine, but it’s a little troublesome to carry around wads of it everywhere,” she explained with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You never did answer my question by the way.”

“What question?”

“Where are you from?” Hanji leaned forward. “You’re such a mystery. You’ve barely said a word all day, letting me do all the talking. The most I’ve gotten from you is your name and the fact that you’re new here and think human brains are fascinating. Who are? Where are you from? What brings you to London? What do you do? Are you just visiting? I’m so curious!”

“Tch, that’s a lot of questions.” Hanji just stared at him expectantly. He stared back, willing her to back down, but she didn’t so finally he accepted defeat. “Fine. Who am I? That’s a complex question and I won’t answer it right now. Where am I from? Everywhere. Nowhere. What brings me to London? I don’t know. I like it here.” He looked through the blinds of the window next to him. The sun was setting and orange light glanced off the glass of the tall skyscrapers, reminding him of a planet he had once visited where red and orange stone were arranged in tall towers like so many populated buildings. Dust blew from the south, spotting the towers in white and blue like the glass of the skyscrapers under earth’s blue sky. “Everything is...new. There is so much to see here.”

He paused again before finally looking back at Hanji. He continued answering her series of questions. “What do I do? I do not understand this question. I do many things. That is a stupid question. Am I just visiting? That is also a strange question. I have as much right to be here as you. This is not my home, and it is my home. Everywhere is my home if I wish it to be. I will stay as long as I wish and then move on. If this is what you mean by ‘visiting’, then yes, I am ‘just visiting’.”

“Like I said before, Levi, you’re a weird one. I think you and I are going to be very good friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - This is research I've read in a book called Nothing by Jeremy Webb from NewScientist. If you want to read more about it, I suggest researching the experiments of Louis Sokoloff, Marcus Raichle, Gordon Shulman, and Michael Greicius.


	3. And the Earth Spins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi is still stretching the sleep from his limbs and he finds himself becoming ever more addicted to the magical drink called coffee. He also spends another afternoon with Hanji, the eccentric but loveable mad scientist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long. I've had really bad writer's block with this one, which was compounded by the fact that I've been the busiest I've ever been in my life the past few weeks. Anyway, I hope you enjoy :)  
> **Also, this is barely edited so if you see any mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them!

Night on earth was his favourite of almost any planet. Many worlds he had visited were constantly coated in clouds, or dust, or pollution. So many planets had no clear view of the universe from the surface beneath their atmosphere, but earth did. At least, it had before. Now he was sad to see that the bright lights of the city had drowned the light of the stars, light that had travelled billions of miles just to get here. Many of those stars were probably dead by now. In fact, he had witnessed the passing of most of them.

                But there was also something beautiful about the man-made lights. They were colourful in places. Green and red and blue blinked and flickered through the night, though most of the light was yellow or white. Walking along the path, he soon learned that what he had mistaken for creatures new to this planet were actually transportation machines. They had engines that roared like the great beasts of Vharghr, a violent planet filled with armour plated creatures with great black teeth and serrated claws on their many paws. Though these vehicles were nothing like those monsters. They rolled on rubber wheels and were operated by humans. Much of the light in the city came from them, their red and white lights racing past or else following one another closely to fill the street with dots of brightness.

                He also discovered that humans had lost their fear of the dark, though they still could not see in it. They stayed out of their homes until the early hours of the morning, when the early risers emerged and went about their day. There was far less activity at night than in the day, but many places still thrummed with life and he passed several establishments that smelled strongly of alcohol, sweat, and the stench of human beings packed together in a small space. Music always accompanied the smell, the bass loud and low pitched, vibrating the surrounding air forcefully.

                He felt no desire to visit these places, though the change in attitude and culture did intrigue him. He remembered the time when humans feared to leave their homes at night, locking themselves inside as soon as the sun went down and saving their candles for emergencies during the vulnerable hours. Now they braved the dark and indeed revelled in it. He marvelled at their adaptability. Humans were by far the most adaptable species he had ever known. So many intelligent, promising species had died out because they could not change, but humans seemed capable of adapting to the point of surviving indefinitely. Possibly even past the extinction of their own planet, a remarkable feat in the history of this universe.

                As the planet spun slowly and sunlight began to spread from the east, he found the tallest building in the city and began to climb. It was built almost like a single shard of glass sticking up from the ground, hard and reflective. If he hadn’t just awoken from a deep sleep, he might have had the energy to move his body through space without the aid of muscle and tendon. As it was, he scaled the sheer side of the building similar to the manner of a fly walking up a wall. His fingertips clung to the glass effortlessly, as did the soles of his leather boots. He was fast and before any human could have seen him he was at the top, standing at the very tip of one of its three sharp points.

                He stood still, relaxed, as he watched the earth turn so that more and more of the land he could see with physical eye was illuminated. He could see so many clusters of human populations, so much change in such a small area of land. It was beautiful, but it also filled him with a sort of aching melancholy that stung his eyes and made him clutch his chest. Perhaps he was growing old and sentimental, but he was simultaneously proud of the advancement of the stumbling, bipedal mammals that organized and created all this, and saddened by the loss of what had been. He felt as though he were on a precipice between the old and the new, but a wall now stood between him and the past and the only thing left was to move forward.

                In that moment, oddly, the thing he wanted most was a nice cup of coffee. He descended the tower as he had come up and began walking towards the coffee shop he had visited yesterday. The early risers were already flowing through the streets, their eyes drooping with sleepiness and their paces firm and determined. He started to feel the momentum of this community and he joined the stream of people effortlessly, finding his way back to the shop filled with the lovely aroma of coffee beans by memory. He paused just outside the door to breathe deeply before stepping inside.

                The same nebula-eyed man stood behind the counter, smiling genuinely as he handed out coffees and took orders. It was a busy morning and it took several minutes for Levi to reach the front of line. When he did, the man – Eren, he remembered – smiled impossibly wider and grabbed a paper cup from the stack beside him.

                “Hello again! Another black coffee?”

                “Yes, please.” Levi was never one for smiling (he knew that it was supposed to be friendly among humans, but he always felt it made him look threatening whenever he tried to imitate the gesture), but he found the corners of his mouth lifting slightly as he watched the enthusiastic human pour his coffee and put a lid over the top.

                “It’s Levi, right?” Eren asked conversationally as he rang up the purchase.

                “Yes. And you are Eren.” He wasn’t sure why they were verifying each other’s names, but he went with it.

                “You remembered! Awesome. Anyway, that’ll be two fifty. Have a good day!”

                Levi handed over the money and walked back out onto the street with his coffee. _Awesome?_ What was ‘awesome’ about remembering somebody’s name? Short-term memory should not inspire awe. Perhaps it was a new meaning of the word with which we was not familiar? He shrugged and decided to drop the topic.

                He explored the city, sipping at his drink and enjoying the feeling of stretching his limbs and seeing the city from the ground. There was so much to see, so many new inventions and fashions and interesting human interactions. He watched the people mostly, listening to the way they greeted each other and the changes in grammar and vocabulary. He was surprised to hear a myriad of languages spoken all over the city, though it was mostly English. There were also French speakers, families speaking Arabic, businessmen speaking Japanese. A group of young girls walked by, giggling and conversing in Italian. Many people appeared to be on missions of great importance, rushing by with leather briefcases and stern faces, but many others appeared to be leisurely enjoying the city, as Levi was.

                Levi drained the last of his coffee and started to throw the cup in the trash when he noticed something scrawled on the side of the cup. It was a series of numbers written in hasty, messy handwriting. He remembered seeing Eren pick up a marker and write something on the cup, but he hadn’t thought anything of it. What was the meaning of the numbers? Were they important? He memorised them just in case and threw the cup away, wishing he knew the answer to this mystery.

                As he was thinking it over, he continued walking and soon found himself in front of the building Hanji had pointed out to him as her lab. On impulse he turned and walked up the steps to the front door. The doors slid to the side as soon as he reached them, startling him, but he quickly recovered and entered the building. It was a modern-looking building full of metal and glass. The floor was polished so smoothly as to mirror his reflection with disconcerting clarity. He glanced around, unsure of where to go. A large desk sat in the centre of the room, indicating that he might find some answers from the woman currently sitting behind it.

                The woman looked up as he approached, but held up her finger instead of speaking to him. She spoke into a device at her ear, which Levi recognized as having a similar function to the black rectangle Hanji had used to speak to her assistant even though it was vastly different in appearance. He noticed that the cord attached to it led to a small box that housed a set of buttons. Each button had a number written on it. Was that what the numbers were for? He supposed it made sense that in order to contact a specific person you had to indicate the particular device they owned. Does that mean Eren wanted him to call him on this device? Why would he do such a thing?

                “Good morning, sir. How may I help you?” Levi was pulled out of his reverie by the soft, clear voice of the woman before him. She was blonde and petite, with a confidence in her eye that indicated her capability at her job.

                “I am looking for someone named Hanji? I was told that their lab is in this building, though I do not know where to go.”

                The recognition on her face reassured Levi that he had indeed come to the right place. She smiled understandingly and picked up the communication device again, dialling a few short digits before putting it to her ear.

                “Moblit? It’s Petra. There’s someone here to see Hanji. I think so.” She put the device against her chest and looked up at him. “You’re Levi right?” When he answered affirmatively, she picked up the device again and continued, “Yeah, it is him. All right, I’ll send him up. Bye.”

                Levi heard Moblit’s grunted response – reminding him humorously of a caveman – before she placed the device back in its place on the box. Levi started to ask the woman what the device was called and the details of its function, but she stood up before he had a chance and indicated for him to follow her.

                “Hanji told us all about you, I hope you don’t mind. Not many people can put up with a whole conversation with them without losing their mind. They’re really passionate about their work and they tend to be a little...overzealous in explaining things that interest them. So to find someone who enjoyed their company? That’s news around here.”

                “I find most people to be at least moderately annoying. I just needed to adjust to Hanji’s...eccentricities. They’re not a bad conversationalist.” Levi instantly adopted the pronoun since it seemed to be the one Hanji preferred, if Petra was to be trusted as a source for that type of information. The singular ‘they’ has been used since the time of Chaucer, though he hadn’t heard it often since then. It seemed like it had made a comeback.

                Petra laughed. “Hanji said you talk like that.” When he looked offended she immediately turned apologetic, “I like it! It’s different. It’s like you stepped out of one of those old-timey novels, you know?”

                Levi had no idea, but he nodded, accepting her apology. Petra led him to a set of heavy silver doors and stood in front of them. She pushed a small glowing button to the right of the doors and stepped back.

                “Just take the lift up to the third floor, turn left, and then Hanji’s lab will be on the right. It will probably be the one with smoke coming out of it, but either way you can’t miss it.” He could tell that Petra was amused by this, but he wasn’t sure why.

                “Thank you.” The silver doors opened as soon as he spoke the words, and Petra waved at him before walking away, trusting that he would be able to find his way. He stepped into the small room, which was really more like a human-sized box, and looked around. She had called it a ‘lift’ and told him to take it to the third floor, so Levi assumed the box did exactly as advertised. The only problem was that he had no idea how to make the box lift him to the third floor. He remembered a similar machine he had encountered several billion light years away from here. It had been activated by voice and it brought you where you wished to go within a building or sector. Though those machines were built like pods rather than boxes and were constantly humming with the energy needed for them to move.

                “Third floor,” he tried. “Up. Go. Upwards. Lift.” None of them worked. Then he noticed a cluster of faintly glowing buttons on the wall next to the, still open, doors. Like the buttons on the communication box, they all had numbers or symbols on them. He pressed the one that held the Latin symbol for three and hoped that it worked.

                The doors closed with a shudder and the box began to lift, dragging itself slowly up the building. Small, sharp chimes alerted him to every level they passed and he was pleased to see that it stopped at the third one. The doors shuddered open once more and he stepped out into an empty hallway.

                The florescent lights were glaring in the small, grey and white space. The walls were a dirty white and the floors were white tile flecked with grey. Everything was bare and unfriendly, so different from most human spaces he had visited. He walked in the direction he had been instructed and soon heard the sound of crashing over the echoing of his own footsteps.

                “Hanji! Are you okay?” It was a voice Levi didn’t recognise, though he recognised the concern in it. He approached the double silver doors and stood on his toes to peek in one of the circular windows. As Petra had predicted, the first thing he noticed was smoke filling the room with a light haze. Then he noticed Hanji sitting on the ground, coughing, their face smeared with black ash.

                He hurriedly entered the room, worried for the safety of this apparently reckless human. A large man in a lab coat was crouched next to her anxiously while another equally large man was dousing the flames – which Levi hadn’t noticed until now – with white foam from a red container.

                “Did you see that!? Please tell me you got that on video. That was amazing!” Hanji’s excited reaction both surprised and confused Levi, who was now standing a few feet away, unsure of what to do.

                “Hanji, please,” the man crouching next to her said. From his voice Levi knew him to be Moblit, Hanji’s assistant. “You need to be more careful. At least rest a minute before worrying about the experiment.”

                “Moblit is right, Hanji, you can’t just – oh hello.” The tall, blond man had noticed him now and was staring at Levi with wide eyes. He recovered himself and gestured to the red container in his hand sheepishly. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he assured him, “just a little accident. Nothing to worry about.”

                Before he had a chance to wonder why this man felt the need to reassure him of this now obvious fact, a sharp gasp brought his attention back to the mad scientist on the ground.

 “Levi!” Hanji had finally noticed him and now jumped up from the floor to rush at him. Levi was startled and tried to step back, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid her ash-covered limbs as they wrapped around him.  “You came! I didn’t think you’d actually come until I dragged you, if I ever found you again. I realised that I didn’t even get your phone number last time and I had no idea how to find you! Anyway, I’m just glad you’re here. I was just in the middle of the most _amazing_ experiment -.”

“I see that,” Levi interrupted dryly, delicately extricating himself from her octopus-like hold.

Hanji laughed as though he had just said something incredibly funny. “Yeah, I know. Everyone is always telling me to be more careful, but what’s science without a little bit of risk right? Creativity is the mother of invention, after all!”

“Necessity,” he corrected. She looked confused so he elaborated, “Necessity is the mother of invention. But I appreciate your sentiment.”

“Right, necessity. But anyway, you should come look at what we’ve been doing! It’s so fascinating; I know you’ll love it.”

Levi shook his head at his newfound bizarre friend – for had had begun to consider them such in his head – and passively allowed himself to be led on an informal tour of the lab. Levi’s lungs easily adapted to the increased carbon in the air (not that he _needed_ to breathe per se, but he did enjoy the habit of it) and the smoke didn’t bother him as Hanji eagerly presented him with samples of human and monkey brains, colourful charts of data, and myriad other things around the lab. Overall, Levi had to admit that he was impressed with the scientific advancements he saw, especially those concerning the study of DNA and neurology. A century ago, humans had only surface knowledge of the basic framework of creation, but now they had sequenced enough genomes to actually have a solid understanding of the development and functioning of most living organisms in the universe.  

After two or so hours of this, the blond man finally walked over to where Hanji was hopping from foot to foot as Levi read through all of their latest research (three years worth). Levi finished and handed the last stack of papers back to Hanji as the other man coughed pointedly.

“Hanji. It’s late. Don’t you think we should be closing up shop?”

Hanji glanced at their watch and blanched. “Woah! Time flies when you’re talking about the secret life of brains, huh? Sorry, Erwin. I didn’t mean to leave with all the clean up.” Hanji gestured apologetically to the now spotless lab. Even Levi had been so engrossed in what Hanji was saying that he didn’t notice the lab becoming cleaner and cleaner around him.

“Sure,” Erwin said easily, but there was a playfulness in his eye that suggested he knew that Hanji had done it on purpose. “Moblit headed out a few minutes ago, but I didn’t want to leave you alone in the lab.”

“I wasn’t going to blow up anything else tonight, I promise!” Hanji responded in mock defensiveness. “But I get your point. Let’s go before something spontaneously combusts and Erwin has to clean it up.” They addressed this last part to Levi and motioned with her head for him to follow them to the door.

This time Levi was prepared for how the lift worked and he stood patiently while the metal box lowered the three of them to the ground floor. Hanji was still talking about their theories, which ranged from surprisingly accurate to positively outlandish, and now Levi was started to feel the grate on his nerves. He liked Hanji, he really did, but eventually the ceaseless chatter just became white noise over an ache for silence.

When they finally stepped outside, Levi breathed deeply. The composition of the air was so different inside the building, not just because of the smoke but also the subtraction of many errant elements that existed in free air. Inside, the level of oxygen was much higher and there was a smell of mould and floor polish, but on the street was present the smell of rubber and gasoline, the aroma of cooking food, the pungent stench of nicotine and exhausts. It was the most pleasant scent in the universe, but it was better than the recycled, controlled air within the four walls of the building they just exited.

“Thanks for stopping by, Levi! It was really meet to see you,” Erwin said, offering his hand to Levi. Levi grasped it in the manner of the humans he had watched earlier and shook it firmly.

“Yeah, thanks, Levi! I love talking about my research to someone who actually cares and knows what I’m saying! Come back anytime!” Hanji and Erwin started to walk away and Levi turned in the opposite direction with no clear destination in mind. He hadn’t gone more than two steps when Hanji called his name again and he turned around.

“I almost forgot! What’s your phone number? Just so we have a way to stay in touch.”

Levi furrowed his eyebrows. “Phone?”

“Yeah. You know, your cell phone. To call people? Honestly Levi sometimes it’s like you’re not even from this century.”

Levi frowned. He would have to try harder to not make this fact so obvious. “I do not have a phone,” he admitted. He supposed that ‘phone’ was the name of the communication device Hanji and Petra had used. He would have to find a way to obtain one and learn how to use it.

“Oh. That makes things difficult, doesn’t it?”

“I plan on getting one soon, however. If you will give me the number of your phone I will call you then and we will be able to ‘stay in touch’, as you say.”

“Okay.” Hanji grinned. “You know, I’m starting to get used to the way you talk. I dig it. It’s very...formal. It’s kind of adorable actually.”

Many of the things Hanji just said confused him and he had no idea how to respond. He did latch onto one aspect, however, and immediately made a face. “Adorable? I am not ‘adorable’.” Adorable was a word to describe babies and small animals, not eons old beings made of stars and potential.

“Sorry, Mr. Sensitive. You are most certainly _not_ adorable.” Hanji’s grin was mocking and they placed one hand over their heart in faux apology. “I expect a call from you, Mr. Not-adorable. Don’t forget.”

Levi scowled at her facetiousness as she waved jauntily and turned to walk home. Levi huffed irritably and spun on his heel to continue on his previous path. He closed his eyes as he walked, relishing the silence, and used his other senses to direct him. His hackles were still raised from being teased, but he couldn’t deny the gentle contentedness he felt in his chest. It had been a good day and he didn’t regret spending most of it with Hanji. He hoped tomorrow would be just as enjoyable and he found himself already looking forward to buying a cup of coffee from his new favourite shop in the city.


End file.
